Cafe Goes Over Easy for 50 Years

In 1946, three young couples arrived in what was then a farming town with a vision to open the only all-night cafe between Los Angeles and San Diego.

The six friends scraped together just enough cash to open a cafe and gas station in a walnut grove on old Highway 101. They named it the Walnut Grove Restaurant, one of three eateries in a town of 600.

“We all pulled 12-hour shifts,” said 79-year-old Lorraine Newhart Buswell, one of the founders. She ended up taking over the operation in 1948 with her first husband, Fred Newhart Jr. “The men would run the gas station, the women would run the restaurant,” she said.

This month, members of the Newhart family, who still own it, will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Walnut Grove Restaurant, one of the oldest family-owned businesses in town.

“It’s kind of a town hangout for a lot of people,” said 70-year-old Larry Buchheim, former mayor and lifelong resident. “The kind of place where you swap stories with old friends. It’s an institution.”

It has also inspired loyalty in a generation of employees, some of whom went on to illustrious careers. Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates, for example, once bused tables there for 63 cents an hour.

Among veteran employees are Edna Olivares, 58, and Lucy Reynolds, 60, who have been working at the eatery for nearly 40 years.

“It’s a home away from home,” Reynolds said. “I could work here for free.”

What started out as a lunch counter with three tables, an outhouse and a gas pump evolved over the years into a favorite stop for farmers, truck drivers and even celebrities on their way from Hollywood to the horse races in Del Mar.

“We had big stars stop by, like Ronald Reagan, Bing Crosby and Tennessee Ernie Ford,” said 56-year-old Fred Newhart III, who helped take over the business after his father died in 1994.

In the late 1950s, the Newharts moved the cafe to a location along Ortega Highway, closer to Interstate 5. “All the locals just followed them,” Buchheim said. “It was very well known in those days.”

“The Walnut Grove survived,” Buchheim said. “The same people still go there after all these years.”